Age of mythology completo
On paper, all this sounds ghastly and, well, not really funny.
A rueful feeling that anarchic good times are soon to end permeates the film. “There must be some kind of way outta here,” ponders Jimi Hendrix on the soundtrack, as the couple embark on an ill-fated trip to the English countryside, only to return to their squalid Camden Town flat more despondent than ever. Set at the tail end of the 1960s, writer-director Bruce Robinson’s semi-autobiographical film chronicles the final days of a co-dependent friendship between two out-of-work actors.
– Christian Blauvelt, BBC Culture, US (Credit: Criterion) How perfect that a mime would give us a meme. For a silent artist his use of sound here is revolutionary and even anticipates the “narrator voice” jokes that pop up on Twitter today. And somehow, Chaplin made it even better when he reedited it in 1942 with the addition of his own voiceover to provide ironic commentary to what’s happening on screen. The Gold Rush is intimate, in its glimpses of loneliness and hunger, and it’s epic – with stunning special effects of avalanches and windstorms – in its depiction of the transformational power of greed. You’ve gone from the poignant to the hysterical in a matter of moments, and it’s a testament to Chaplin’s singular ability to make you feel such a wide range of emotions while watching his films. So he falls asleep and dreams she did arrive and dine with him, and afterwards he puts on a dance for her with the dinner rolls.
Charlie Chaplin’s Little Tramp, trying to make a go of it as a gold prospector in the Yukon, is waiting for the woman he loves to join him at midnight – and she doesn’t show up. Every year on New Year’s Day I make time to watch The Gold Rush, which features surely cinema’s loveliest, loneliest depiction of a New Year’s celebration.